Surfactant mediated clofazimine release from nanocellulose-hydrogels

The widely tunable physical and chemical characteristics of hydrogels make them advantageous in biomedical and pharmaceutical applications, yet their hydrophilic nature might discourage their use as drug delivery systems for poorly water soluble molecules. In this work we demonstrate the sustained release of a large amount of a lipophilic drug (clofazimine) from nanocellulose hydrogels. Hydrogels are formed via ionotropic gelation and loaded with up to 37 % w/w) of the hydrophobic molecule. The kinetic profile avoids the initial burst release and we demonstrate that the surfactant co-loading is a successful strategy to increase by about 50 times the drug solubility in water, without the need of complex fabrication steps.